I was born a grasshopper in a family of ants. In my family, it’s all about what you do. Never what do you think or feel or believe, no, it’s all about what did you do.
The fable is a familiar one. The grasshopper sings and plays away the summer while the ant works, works and works. Then come winter, the grasshopper freezes its wings off while the ant basks in the warmth of its cozy home eating melted tootsie pops on pretzel crumbs.
I always knew I was the grasshopper and my siblings the ants. I knew I needed to change or come winter they’d slam the door in my face with all the snugness of a thousand ‘I told you so’s’. It’s a battle I’ve been fighting all my life. Then suddenly today the truth dawned on me in all its simplicity.
How can a grasshopper ever be an ant?
Why can’t I just embrace the fact that I am a grasshopper?
In the newer ‘softer and gentler’ version of the story, the ants realize this truth. They take the grasshopper in out of the snow. In return, all through the long cold months of winter, the grasshopper entertains them.
The German Anabaptist ancestral DNA in me screams out to disregard this perversion of Aesop’s moral. Life is all about the work. Don’t allow a clueless culture to convince you otherwise. To be is to do. Dobedobedo.
So, winter is coming. To shut my ancestors up, I suppose I’ll get away from this computer and go do something.
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1 comment:
Ye cannae change who or wah ye are.....
Just embrace, and evolve.....but never confine to someone else's thought of who and what you should be.
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